An Unexpected Swim with the Mysteries.

My D.I.Y Peace Path

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I had a piece about the amazing synchronicity on my retreat ready to publish a couple of weeks ago. Then I realized that my experiences there went deeper.

Once again a poem read by Laurie Wagner helped me find a way to explore those layers. “Home” by Natalie Goldberg begins, "I'm thinking of…”

I’m thinking of how I described my week away to people as a DIY writing/art retreat and then, in my head added, “or time to just be.” That was what I truly sought. An entire week where every moment was my own in a rented cabin in the woods. My loose plan was to move through my days listening to what my body needed and following sparks of curiosity wherever they led.

Chaney and the place

I met my dear friend Chaney in a wonderful online artist collective that ended last year. I felt drawn to her beaming presence right away. We’d become close, sharing countless video calls, our lives, and dreams. They had been to the place where we rented rustic cabins and were going to hang out in real life for the first time. The only times we planned together were morning walks, a couple of meals and recording a podcast episode. We’d play the rest by ear. The fact that we had to record in the utility room’s wi-fi cracked us up, but like many unknowns in my life, the space turned out to be larger and brighter than expected.

The cabins were on property owned by a Catholic motherhouse where retired nuns lived. That gave me pause since I was raised Catholic and well on my way to atheism by age nine. Chaney assured me it was a large campus and the cabins were far from the motherhouse. She’d been an artist in residence there several times and said those nuns were what you wanted nuns to be. They were about love, peace and looking out for marginalized people. The place and the nuns, if I met one, would be healing.

By the time of this trip, I’d been agnostic for most of my life. I believed that something was out there and that we humans knew little to nothing about it. It or they may have created the primordial soup that evolved into nature and people, but didn’t take part in our daily lives. Even as a kid, I saw that most of the suffering in this world was caused by people and was ours to prevent and remedy. Not to mention that nothing had answered my simple childhood prayer for help. In addition to a deity allegedly looking out for me, I was told I had a guardian angel. I could only conclude that if I did, mine must be a drunk.

I believed something existed beyond my five senses due to experiences I couldn’t explain. Synchronicity and serendipity were two and sometimes when I wrote it felt like a download. I’d spooled out entire plots and characters out of whole cloth.

I'm thinking that from an early age chronic post-traumatic stress syndrome (CPTSD,) made trust in people almost impossible for me, much less the dubious concept of some caring unseen entity.

. I remained a serious cynic through most of my 20s. I believed good things could and would happen for my friends, but not me. All that time, I was metaphorically poised for the worst to happen. At some point, I had an epiphany. By always being prepared for negative events, I was trying to protect myself. Worse, it was counterproductive to my well-being. When I was alert to disaster, I wasn’t looking for potential good. Even my dreaming was limited to the narrow events I could see happening based on my early life experiences.

That’s where I was before I left for that cabin, agnostic and seeking a slower, more tuned-in way to live my days. I didn’t undergo any type of religious conversion. I experienced more of an opening to the unknown and unexplained.

What I brought

• Clothes for hot or cold weather

• Lots of tea

• Paper and digital copies of manuscripts to revise: a cozy mystery and a non-fiction manuscript, Aunt Rita’s Field Guide to Life.

• Watercolors, brushes, mixed media papers, and glue

• Part of a quilt to hand sew.

• Podcasts with John O’Donohue and Jon Kabat Zinn to remind me where I want to come from inside and that how I respond to the world is up to me.

• Julia Cameron’s paperback Living the Artist’s Way

• My wrinkled, illegible hopes and dreams to iron, listen for new directions and find the courage to think and dream bigger.

What I didn’t bring

Expectations, plans, shoulds. Everything was up in the air like a kite subject to whim and whimsy. I also left behind my audiobook of Beauty by O’Donohue, since I was disappointed I hadn’t been able to get into it.

The enigma of arrival

That V.S. Naipaul title pops into my mind whenever I travel to new places. there’s the unknown of what it will be like, how we will feel, and what changes a new space might bring.

My drive was gorgeous, with the light green, spring canopies of the trees rounding and softening the tops of the mountains. I drove onto the property late one afternoon.

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The place was gorgeous with fields of yellow flowers. A winding dirt road led to the secluded area with a handful of rustic cabins.

Everything had been thoughtfully designed and placed. There was both all I needed and nothing I didn’t. I was pleased to see a compost container for food scraps, cloth napkins, and kitchen cabinets made on-site from a fallen tree. There was no Wi-fi, TV, or cell service. A handmade quilt with a star pattern was on the bed and both rooms had large windows overlooking the woods. Perfect. All I heard were small birds chatting, a woodpecker doing its thing, and the wind in the trees. There were wasps and stink bugs on the porch, that left when the weather cooled.

Looking around the cabin, I spotted a lone book. It was Beauty, by John O’Donohue. That was the first bit of synchronicity. Throughout my stay I picked it up, stopping after every couple of sentences or paragraphs to ponder the words and conjure the images in my head. I hadn’t been able to approach it that way with the audio version.

I’ve read that some books in the stack of unread ones beside your bed have expired by the time you reach them. It’s no longer the right time for you to read them. Just as Beauty needed to be read and savored, Living the Artist’s Way resonated for me more on paper as well. Cameron’s book is about asking for guidance from something unseen throughout your day. The idea that something kind that had only clear, positive guidance existed was a real leap for me.

Serendipity

The first morning, I sat by a lake and checked in with my little girl. It had been a while since I’d done that, but she agreed it was peaceful and lovely there. She thought they needed a playground. The adult me didn't want to climb on monkey bars, but a swing would be nice. I didn’t know then that serendipity was on the rise. The idea of play came up again a couple of mornings later when I drew an affirmation card. That afternoon I noticed a curving path mown through a field of high wheat colored grasses. On impulse, I followed it to the end, where I saw a wooden bench swing hanging from the branch of a dappled Sycamore by another lake.

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Secrets of the labyrinth

One of my favorite spots was the labyrinth. I walked it nearly every day to ask how I should spend my time there. I thought of it as asking my subconscious and threw in a request for signs that I was on the right path in life just in case any helpful spirit happened to be paying attention. Over the week, taking that slow time opened me up to new possibilities and bigger dreams than I’d allowed myself. I read that the paths of that labyrinth were created with stones from an old wall on the property that was built by enslaved people. That contemplative space was an homage to them. The whole place seemed designed for listening, noticing, and healing.

To experience a labyrinth, you hold a question in your mind as you wend your way toward the center. When you arrive, you pause and “listen” for answers as you slowly pace back out. The same path leads both in and out of the labyrinth, symbolic of leading you back to your heart and then out again, carrying what you found there with you.

The middle of this labyrinth was a small circle. Three upturned logs sat in an arc facing the woods and a cool chunk of colored glass on top of each.

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I noticed a hairy brown caterpillar inching its way up the log with the turquoise glass. I watched it reach the rim, turn, and start walking back down. That seemed odd, but what did I know about caterpillar habits? I soon began my slow walk through the labyrinth. “listening.” With only a turn or two before the exit, I spotted the caterpillar. I was surprised it had made it that far so fast. I watched it climb onto a stone at a turn in the path. As it crawled across it, I noticed several shell fossils on the surface. I know someone placed that rock at a point where it might be noticed, but I hadn’t seen it the other times and wouldn’t have if I hadn’t watched the caterpillar.

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A surprising week

That wasn’t the only time that week when taking the time to explore a small detail in nature led to unexpected discoveries. In the normal course of life, when something catches my interest, I often don’t feel like I have time to explore it. My mind is a few steps ahead of my feet. A couple of days later, I noticed some carved, abstract patterns in slices of bark-less wood stacked against an old shed. I'd seen similar interesting indentations once before and understood bugs or bacteria made them. I took photographs intending to make prints for my mixed media.

The photographs enabled me to spot some different, much finer lines that appeared to be repeated shapes. They were made by something else. Bacteria? Or could they be etchings left when small creatures died under the bark? Another possibility was that they created similar patterns over and over for some reason known to them but not us. Some primordial patterning? They felt like an exciting mystery, almost a secret society for people who stopped long enough to notice them. I marveled at the intricacies and enjoyed coming up with theories to explain them.

I'm thinking of how it never occurred to me to look up what made those more markings or why on a device. I’d been without easy access to wi-fi or cell service for only a few days and had broken the habit of that almost automatic reach for quick answers. Life felt so much more interesting and open to possibilities without the internet.

I’ve read that labeling everything makes us less curious. If you know that’s a walnut tree, you feel like it’s a known quantity. I always liked to know how everything worked and loved doing research. That was the history major and retired lawyer in me, but also my approach to life from the start. I learned all I could to understand people and events and make the best decisions.

Recording our Rituals episode

Chaney and I planned to record an episode of our podcast about secular rituals on Thursday. On Wednesday I checked my email to find a recording by the extraordinary, down-to-earth Laurie Wagner. The poem was “How to Create a Ritual.” by Jaqueline Suskin. More synchronicity. I had my thoughts together for the episode, but felt like something was missing. Suskin’s poem helped me unify them. I needed to look that poet up.

If that wasn’t enough, when I told Chaney about the poem, she not only knew Suskin, but had brought her book about the seasons with her and read it just the day before.

Moving forward, face turned to the sun

It’s difficult to break life-long modes of being. Some of them are so much a part of us that we aren’t even aware of them or how they hamper us once we’re free of a bad situation. I’ve been on a long healing journey and only a few years ago was able to get help with the CPTSD. Addressing triggers and calming my whole hyper-alert system has brought wonderful changes both in my thoughts and how I approach life. Before, it was like I had an inner dog who constantly barked warnings when there was no longer any real danger.

In the last year or so, I’ve been moving toward approaching life more through my senses. I’m less interested in intellectualizing everything and more curious about the unknown and unknowable. I’ve read, and parsed whole mountain ranges of information in my time, seeking seams of truth. Now is my season to mine all I’ve learned and figured out. I feel a pull toward going inward and building a body of work from there.

I also realize more and more how little I know. Socrates said “The more I know, the more I realize that I know nothing.” I may be in excellent company, but it’s still unsettling. So few things are always true. The adage is that we can only count on death and taxes. Since so many don’t pay taxes, I’m leaving that one out. The only constants are life, however short, death at the other end of this adventure, and constant change in the middle. We might as well embrace all of the reverses and curve balls the winds bring and invite each in like in Rumi’s poem, The Guest House. I haven’t arrived there yet, but it’s an aspiration.

There was more serendipity and synchronicity on my retreat, but sharing too much lessens their extraordinary nature.

It wasn’t until I returned home and penned the first version of this essay that I realized what a remarkable inner opening I’d had in a short time. I hadn’t focused on pulling that thread before, although I had a bit for the podcast episode about rituals. My spiritual path, now that I see it, has been like a dusty, boulder-strewn trail with occasional signs that read “Road closed for the next eleven years.”

This particular stretch began a few months ago with my unusual openness to attempting to commune with well ancestors. At first, it sounded way too woo, but a friend introduced me to the idea and I didn’t want to dismiss it out of hand. When I researched it, I had to admit it had some appeal. After all, my entire search for family history/genealogy was in hopes of finding a nice, mentally healthy-sounding dead ancestor or two I could feel good about and who couldn't hurt me. It never occurred to me to try to communicate with them.

Dead mentors had always been the best in my experience, so it wasn’t a completely foreign concept. I’d devoured almost 2,000 books outside of assigned reading before I graduated high school. I raised myself on the wisdom of those great writers, philosophers, and teachers. Dead mentors have much to recommend them. They never reject you for your gender or any other prejudices and you don't have to worry about outsized egos, narcissism, or disturbing behavior. Who knew, maybe I could benefit in a similar way from communing with a couple of nice dead ancestors.

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Asking for guidance

I read and tried the exercises for asking for guidance in the first chapter and a half of Living the Artist’s Way. Since Julia Cameron promotes writing for guidance, it felt similar to what I’d done with problems since I could write. I’d scribble a question, then I’d jot down a couple of potential solutions to my problem that weren’t quite right. My gut told me that the third or fourth one rang true and I’d go with it. I thought of it as having a written conversation with my subconscious, which puts things together faster than my brain. I had a well-tuned gut. Now if it were only toned as well. A question I can ask another day perhaps.

This guidance experiment feels different. I seem to be writing clear answers the first time. Maybe I have more confidence in the process now or no longer require concrete proof before I trust. Maybe I’m tapping into something else.

Thinking it through

I'm thinking of how little we know, I know, about this world. If there is an afterlife, we lack accounts of what it is like. I used to think there was nothing when we died. That was fine with me as long as there was no pain. If there were something else, it would be a pleasant surprise. You see, I believed that if there were a deity of any kind, by all rights it should be better than the best person I knew and I know some extraordinary kind, compassionate people.

Julia Cameron’s approach is a more personal, everyday practice aimed at, caring spirits or emotionally healthy dead relatives. Something could be responding or I may be making the answers up like dialogue for my fictional characters. Either way, it bolsters me to think something out there might give a damn about my struggles. I didn’t have that grounding relative as a kid. Sometimes what happens when I write for guidance sounds like an Italian ancestor who is kind, straightforward, and a tad impatient with follow-up questions.

Right now I prefer trying out connecting to something unseen to never knowing there might be something amazing out there. Just as I needed to be compassionate to the inner critics trying to protect me from disappointment or failure, I’m caring about myself by not assuming I know what others think of my experiments or letting those concerns hobble me.

The upshot

I left the picture book fields of my retreat refreshed, restored, and peaceful. Yes, it also felt like some of that old Catholic wound felt healed. The beauty and serenity of that place was a balm. I hoped the essence of that place would be a movable feast that would stay with me like Hemingway's Paris.

So many extraordinary things happened on that retreat and there was one more to come on my drive home. I stopped to visit another member of our wonderful old collective. It was great to meet Bex, too. A week earlier, we’d hung out in a town near her where I broke up my trip. On my way home, I went a little out of my way to stop at her home. When I exited my car, an object on her lawn caught my attention. She had a chunk of turquoise glass like the one in the center of the labyrinth. I’d never seen one before and now two in a week in different states. What were the odds?

The unseen spirit and support of my fabulous old artist collective now seem instrumental in the unusual experiences I had that week.

My retreat was sprinkled with signs that I was in the right place and on the right trail for me. At this point, I’m not imbuing those surprises with other meanings or feeling the need to understand them. For a while, I’ve been surrendering to how things are. Surrendering meaning accepting things as they are, not giving up. I’m doing the same with the interesting experiences I had that week. I’ll keep trying asking for guidance and see where that adventure leads me. Maybe I’ll get a swing.

Some seed pods for you:

Laurie Wagner true life writing:

Chaney Williams:

Waxing Dreamscapes: Visions for a Sustainable Future

Krista Tippett’s interview with John O'Donohue.

John O'Donohue's book Beauty  

Julia Cameron's book Living the Artist’s Way

Cody Cook-Parrott

’s substack Monday Monday

Artist Carrie Schmitt’s Studio Love Letters. The affirmation cards

Housekeeping: I’m tuning in to the best rhythm for me on Substack and you may have noticed I’ve changed from weekly-ish to monthly-ish. These are crafted pieces of some length that I hope spark something in you and make your path easier.

This change opens up time for me to polish two book-length projects that have been in the works for a while. I’ll share more about them as they evolve. As always, thank you for reading.